MY Life

I honestly can't remember a time when I wasn't making art. It's been a bit of a compulsion. My father worked his whole life at Hallmark, so he could always procure plenty of art supplies on the cheap to keep me busy. I would stay in my room alone for hours, getting lost in creation. I would make and sell greeting cards and pictures to family and neighbors under the moniker "Pawmark" - my first of many companies. 

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I took a sabbatical from art from 3rd grade through high school, focussing instead on sports, fun and making money, believing art was no longer "cool" (unless you're some prodigy, which I most certainly was not!) But when I was 19, the country club where I waited tables took notice of my special-du-jour chalkboard drawings and asked me to paint some props for an upcoming children's event. I started with very little confidence, but a few days later I finished the Hogwarts school crests in tempera paint on plywood. The management was as pleasantly surprised as I was. They had another event coming up and asked me to repeat the process; it was cheaper to pay me to paint the props than rent them each time. Soon they moved me out of the restaurant and into the break room, paying me full time to basically teach myself how to paint; looking at a picture and just working it over until it looked right. Before long the members of the country club took notice and asked me to paint for them as well.

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I continued working and painting at the country club through college. At the University of Kansas I double majored in Graphic Design and Marketing, with a minor in Art History, working toward becoming an art director at an advertising agency. But after numerous internships, the charm of the ad industry had tarnished for me. My path was  turning, I could feel it. I spent my final semester studying abroad, focussing on Typography at our sister school in Trier, Germany.
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After graduation I moved back to Kansas City and got married. I continued working at restaurants for the flexible income (and food and wine), but spent my days building an upcycled T-shirt screen printing company and my list of painting clients. Soon I teamed up with a family friend to learn the craft of ornamental plaster. It worked out well, because after we had finished the plaster installation, I could faux paint or gold leaf any ornament, giving the client a complete package, from demolition to construction to finished product. In 2007 we got the chance to work with craftsmen from England on the restoration of the historic Midland Theater. It was there that the owner's rep from Cordish, after seeing me recreate a century-old oil painting of two cherubs throwing another out of heaven, asked me if I could paint "bigger".  I then formed Adorn Studios LLC in order to accept the contract for three large murals in KC's Power & Light District.

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For the next five years I hustled, grew, adapted, and networked. Adorn Studios landed its first commercial restoration in 2013 with the ballroom of the Hotel Phillips. In that job an alliance was formed that led to the creation of Plasterkraft & Mural Masters - shortly thereafter ditching the "Mural Masters" to focus exclusively on plaster.  Within five years we were 100% commercial, with 11 employees, overseeing some of the biggest restorations in the region's architectural renaissance and earning a spot in the city's Best 25 Businesses Under 25 People. Despite the success, I found myself increasingly unhappy; spending more time in the office mired in paperwork than on the job. Creative differences with my business partner led to a split in 2018.

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Plasterkraft was subsequently purchased by Retrochem's Bryan Painter, a friend in the industry, adding yet another facet to his booming historic restoration business - RETROPROS. In keeping me on as Director of Historic Preservation, he provided me with a continued income, an outlet for my craft, and the chance to learn a whole new set of skills in stone and terrazzo restoration, all while allowing me the time to paint murals for my community, work on a children's book, help homeschool my two kids, farm our little slice of land and restore our own 100yr-old home in Westheight Manor, KCK.